This recipe is from Charles Phan’s new cookbook which appeared on many “best of 2012” lists. It’s also the signature dish at his restaurant Slanted Door in San Francisco where I had one of my favorite dinners ever.

I received the Momofuku cookbook as a Christmas gift and quickly zeroed-in on this recipe. It includes the words “pig candy,” so it’s pretty much a sure thing. The list of ingredients (and this is true for most of the recipes in the book) includes several items that my usual grocery store doesn’t carry. Fortunately there is a large Asian supermarket right across the street from where we live, so finding everything I need is no problem.

The whole idea of this recipe is to make all of the accompaniments and serve them on the side of a huge hunk of sweet, crispy, fatty pork shoulder. People take a lettuce leaf, add some rice, add some pork, and add one of the sauces. You’ll be surprised how much pork six adults can consume in this manner.

I’ve done quite a bit of traveling with my job, including frequent trips to Asia. The first time I visited Malaysia was the first time I had the famous dish known as “Singaporean Chili Crab.” To make chili crab, you crack, batter, and fry some mud crabs. You then cover them in a spicy-tomato-chili-egg sauce. Using your hands is the only way to eat them and getting the sauce on your shirt is mandatory. The sauce ranges from spicy to very-very-very spicy (to me at least – a Singaporean would probably laugh at that characterization). This is a mild version. Feel free to increase the serrano chiles or chili paste.

There’s no way I would try to make chili crab at home. (Even in Singapore this is rarely prepared at home.) Using peeled shrimp makes this much more manageable to cook and especially to eat.

The first place I ever had this was at a restaurant in the Batu Ferringhi area of Penang, Malaysia. Penang is famous for great food and, based on the handful of times I’ve been, you can’t go wrong when selecting a place to eat. We chose a place that had a sign reading “if it swims we have it.” Instead of a menu, they had a huge bank of glass tanks with various kinds of sea creatures waiting to be selected and prepared. Photos after the jump. Continue reading ‘Chili prawns’